


Into focus

by JaqofSpades



Series: Into Focus [1]
Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-07
Updated: 2012-09-07
Packaged: 2017-11-13 17:52:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/506140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaqofSpades/pseuds/JaqofSpades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The past snaps into focus when a young voyeur sees something she shouldn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into focus

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This is the first of a series of related oneshots that will tell the story of Senator Veronica Kane and private investigator Eli Navarro from the perspective of witnesses to their long and complicated relationship.
> 
> Warnings: Um. Angst. And Sex. Bad language. And an underaged voyeur. Vague spoilers Season 2; A/U after Season 2 finale.

See, the thing about me? I'm not just another girl, you know? Not about to be valedictorian, or win that ride to some big name school, but I'm a Navarro, and around here, that means something.

It means we know your business. Lose something, and we can find it for you. Want dirt on someone? Sure. Dirty pictures? _No hay una problemo_.

Time was, being a Navarro meant something altogether different, but my tio, he's a good guy, and people see that. They trust him, and bring him their problems. And for a small fee, we fix them.

He trained with the best, he says. Old Sheriff Mars. I barely remember the guy, though they say it was him who sent my Daddy up to Chino. Still, Uncle Eli loved him, and when he bought the business, he kept the name too.

Mars Navarro, we call it now.

My name's Ophelia Navarro, and I'm a detective.

*

Uncle Eli's got me working the lost dog cases. White folks sure love their dogs and they're happy to pay whatever it takes to get them back, so I'm happy to find 'em. It's weird, because dogs just don't seem to go missing in the Barrio, but then, we don't have many Lhapso-schoodle-whatsits either. Just skinny yellow dogs everyone is happy to feed.

But Prom is coming up and that dress ain't gonna pay for itself, so I'm looking for lost dogs. I spend so much time here, I've got my own key to the office, so I just go straight in. I guess I should have knocked, but the door was locked. That usually means Eli's off chasing jumpers or doing surveillance or something.

He's not.

The door into his office is standing ajar, and I don't even have to push my face right up next to it to see them. A gringa – expensive hair, expensive clothes, big ass diamond ring - is standing behind his desk, hand over her mouth as she looks at something in a file. My tio is looking over her shoulder, face drawn and serious – but his hand is on her neck, thumb idly stroking her collarbone as she leans into his touch.

It's Veronica fucking Kane. _Senator_ Kane. Most recognisable woman in politics. Wife to the richest man in California. She blasted out of Neptune at least a decade ago, and it's always big news when she comes back. Nobody's ever going to hear about this, though. Nobody would even dream it was possible.

She looks tiny, cradled in my uncle's huge, heavily inked arms. Tiny, and white, and rich, yet very, very at home. Suddenly it's like I've nudged the dial on my binoculars, and the world has snapped into focus.

*

 




He's the one puzzle I had never been able to solve. Uncle Eli is pushing thirty, but has never had a serious girlfriend. Every chica in the barrio runs after him – good rep, good looking, owns his own business – but he just brushes them off, or straight out runs away.

I would'a thought he was gay, but there's enough gossip to suggest otherwise, and he does take women out – once, or twice, or the type of girls who know the score. Most of his friends are married now, some with kids not much younger than me, and my family isn't subtle anymore about how _sad_ it is, how _tragic_.

I'd never thought to wonder why, before. I'd just swallow it down when Uncle Eli shrugged and smirked and said “not for me”. The olds still speak in Spanish, though, and yeah, it's supposed to be my native tongue and all, but I can't be sure if he meant “it's not on the cards,” or “it's not my destiny.” Either way, it makes mama shake her head and hiss something about finding the right girl, while tia Elena just looks sad.

I remember Veronica, of course. Before she'd become a snooty 09er wife, she was V, or Veronicita, or just Mars if Uncle Eli was mad at her. She used to help me with my homework. She was the one who showed me how to bake choc chip cookies, and sure, that one time, she searched my schoolbag for a missing cashbox. (I'd was trying not to laugh the whole time, because Veronica should have known Uncle Eli was better than that.)

It was later that same year when the world turned to shit. We had nowhere to live and Mama's Abuela was sick and Uncle Eli was in prison. All Mama wanted was to get the fuck out of Neptune, so we packed up the old station wagon and kept driving until it didn't feel like home anymore. Six years we spent in San Fran, and it was good, because being a Navarro didn't mean anything there, you were just left to be, but … being a Navarro didn't mean anything. So we came home, eventually, only to find Uncle Eli had been busy building us a whole new life.

Didn't see him all that much back then, because the Sheriff was sick and Uncle Eli was working constantly to cover both their cases. They would conference on the phone every night until the cancer claimed his voice box as well, and Uncle Eli was on his own. And then one day, I'm reading Vanity Fair in civics class, and I stumble across a six page spread on the magnificent Kane nuptials. Basketball star Wallace Fennel had walked the length of a Hawaiian beach to give away the barefooted bride, and at the lavish reception, the groom had made a moving tribute to Mrs Kane's late father, a California county sheriff.

Trudy Tyler and Sophie Blake had laughed when I told them I used to know her. I didn't blame them – the Navarros were barely scraping respectable back then, and the ascendancy of Veronica Kane was a real-life American fairytale.

I should have known it was all a lie.

*

He's cradling her face in one hand, caressing her sharp little chin, then turning it towards him so he can kiss her. It starts out tender, but the gentle brush of lips soon turns into nips and bites, and holy _shit_. She's undoing his belt and then he's bending her over the desk, pushing her skirt up and tugging her panties down ... _Dios_. They're going to fuck.

It's icky, I tell myself in a panic, averting my eyes. Tio Eli's practically my Dad. I'm spying on them. I desperately want to walk to the door, but my legs refuse to move. Then I look back, and she's got her head thrown back, one of Uncle Eli's hands yanking at that long, blonde hair, and I'm gone. Mesmerised. I've seen things on the Internet, of course, and done a few more things than I'm willing to admit to my mama, but … this. It's different. They're not playing around. (It's so fucking hot.)

He pulls out his cock and begins to tease her with it, crouching over to whisper into her ear as he slides it up and down along the crack of her ass. I woulda expected a Senator – hell, I would have expected Veronica Mars – to be all bossy, but she's begging for him, pleading for him to stop teasing her, arching her back and starting to sob. I think we both exhale in relief when he slams into her. It's rougher than I would have expected, after the way he touched her earlier, but her joyous moan suggests it's exactly what she needed, and I have to look away as my entire body flushes with heat.

The desk is banging against the wall with the force of it, and it looks _violent_ ... teeth bared and groans and cries and slapping flesh, and shockingly, tears. Veronica's mascara is smeared halfway down her face as she urges him to make it all go away, to make her feel, to make it better, and Uncle Eli – he is crying unashamedly as he settles into a mantra of “you're mine, V. Mine. Only mine.”

I'm slowly realising this is much more than lust – it's about grief and sorrow as well, pure suffering stamped on their faces as they work each other over. She begins to keen and I see the moment she gives in to bliss, limbs collapsing under her and her face relaxing into vulnerability. He keeps going, plunging into her, and when she turns her head, I can see his name in the shape of her mouth. Uncle Eli suddenly stills and lets out a strangled shout - “love you!” - and that's why, I realise. That's why he's never with anyone else. He's _always_ loved her.

He flops down over her back and nuzzles her neck, whispering something that makes her smile. It's that sleepy, intimate embrace that finally convinces me I'm an intruder; I back away silently and relock the door on my way out.

I give them thirty minutes, and this time, I knock hard. They're both dressed, _gracias a por Dios_.

“Veronica – you remember my niece, Ophelia? She helps me out with the filing – like you used to for your Dad.”

They exchange a long look that makes me wonder how many times the office had witnessed scenes like that, and Veronica holds out her hand. Her green eyes are huge and languid, her hair is messy, and her clothes rumpled - she looks nothing like the sharp, polished Senator Kane the rest of California knows.

“Hello, Ophelia. I suppose you're past the Powerpuff Girls these days?”

I refrain from rolling my eyes and make a few polite noises. Excuse me if I'm ignorant of the etiquette for meeting your uncle's very famous, very married lover.

“Are you here about a case?”

“Oh no, nothing like that. My husband would kill me.”

Uncle Eli bristles at that, and Veronica shifts uneasily, as if she's said too much.

“And I really must be going. Nice to see you again, Ophelia. I'll be in touch, Eli.”

My tio just grunts, and looks murderous. He heads out on his bike, and I'm left to clean up the chaos in his office. Thank goodness for disinfectant spray, I think, before picking up the creased folder still sitting in the middle of the desk.

It's the Reyes file. Little Leticia Reyes is nearly ten years old, and Carmen and Luis Reyes have dropped a six-figure sum to help locate her birth parents. The photo clipped inside the cover shows a tiny girl with a tip-tilted gringo nose and dark copper skin. She has the Navarro eyes, and Veronica Kane's rueful half smile.

Suddenly I'm counting backwards to see if it's even possible.

Four years since we came back from Frisco. Six years before that. She must have been pregnant at graduation. Maybe the baby had kicked as they dragged him away.

Veronica had named her Leticia, after Great Grandma Letty. Then given her away.

My stomach churns. Uncle Eli is so devoted to our family – he supports us and Elena's brood, and often ends up paying Chardo and Consuela's bills too. “Es familia,” he says. “I'm glad to do it.”

Why had he accepted the case? Did he know?

Their faces flash in front of me; the tenderness, the guilt, the tortured “I love you”. Once more the world shifts, sharpens, and snaps into focus, but this time, I wish it hadn't.

Sometimes the truth hurts too much.

_fin_

 

Disclaimer: This fanfiction was written for personal enjoyment rather than profit. No infringement on the rights of the intellectual property owners is intended.

 


End file.
